Gavin Grimm attends 2019 DoSomething Gala at Chelsea Piers.

Supreme Court Declines to Take Up Transgender Bathroom Case, a Win for Gavin Grimm

And just in time for Pride.

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Today, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case that had already been won in lower courts, allowing the ruling to stand, though without ruling or commenting on the underlying issues of the case as more trans rights cases no doubt head their way. Still, it’s a big win for Gavin Grimm, a transgender man who has been at the center of this case since he was a teen. In 2016, he sued the Virginia Gloucester County School District after being barred from using the boys’ bathrooms in his high school.

In 2018, a U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia judge ruled that, under Title IX, the school could not discriminate against Grimm on the basis of sex. After the ruling, Grimm reportedly said he felt an “incredible sense of relief,” according to the BBC. He also said, “After fighting this policy since I was 15 years old, I finally have a court decision saying that what the Gloucester County School Board did to me was wrong and it was against the law.”

According to NBC News, back when Grimm was transitioning, the school board adopted a policy saying they were limiting the restrooms “to the corresponding biological genders.” It was then, and still remains to this day, an ignorant, hateful decision by the school board that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) took on as a means of protects Grimm’s civil liberties. They told the courts that Grimm being forced to use the nurse’s room or the girl’s room was humiliating for the young man. It also interfered with his education and singled him out amongst his classmates as someone who was the other, something Grimm did not need while transitioning.

Grimm took to Twitter to celebrate the historic win and said that he was “honored to have been part of this victory.”

The ACLU’s Josh Block, according to NBC News, said of the Supreme Court decision, “This is an incredible victor for Gavin and for transgender students around the country.” And Grimm said, “Trans youth deserve to use the bathroom in peace without being humiliated and stigmatized by their own school boards and elected officials.”

(image: Santiago Felipe/Getty)

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Lyra Hale
Lyra (She/Her) is a queer Latinx writer who stans badass women in movies, TV shows, and books. She loves crafting, tostones, and speculating all over queer media. And when not writing she's scrolling through TikTok or rebuilding her book collection.
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